NEW YORK, February 15, 2011—On Sunday, February 13, 2011, the 53rd Annual GRAMMY® Awards honored Mingus Big Band Live at Jazz Standard as the “Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.”

Co-produced by Sue Mingus and Seth Abramson, Mingus Big Band Live at Jazz Standardmarks the 10th Mingus Big Band recording, seven of which have been nominated for Grammys. It is the first win for Mingus music, though legendary jazz composer Charles Mingus (1922-1979) himself received a Grammy for the liner notes on his album Let My Children Hear Music and a posthumous Lifetime Achievement Award in 1997, and in 1999 the album Mingus Dynasty (1959) was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame.

This concert celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of seminal 1959 albums Mingus Dynasty,Mingus Ah Um, and Blues & Politics, and was originally broadcast live on Toast Of The Nation from NPR Music, produced by Mark Schramm, Thurston Briscoe and Becca Pulliam for WBGO under the musical direction of Sue Mingus.

Saturday, February 19, 2011, this same team will record the Mingus Orchestra live at St. Bartholomew’s Church for later broadcast on WBGO. The concert will feature several Mingus compositions conducted by Gunther Schuller with special guest harpist Edmar Castaneda. This concert is produced by Let My Children Hear Music (The Charles Mingus Institute) and made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.

The Mingus Big Band also performs live in concert at Jazz Standard this week from Friday, Feb 18 – Sunday, Feb 20, designed to correspond with the 2011 Charles Mingus High School Competition at Manhattan School of Music.